GETTIN’ YOUR GROOVE ON | fitness motivation

I think we all have those days where we would much rather skip our workout and watch netflix on the sofa. And admittedly, I’ve been feeling those days often. I don’t know if it’s the workload at my job, or the fact that I’ve just been overall stressed, but the last thing I want to do is sweat endlessly at the gym.

So, to combat these feelings, I started to think and write down some things I used to do to help me get in the mood to groove. And I’m gonna be sharing those with you today!

1. FIND YOUR PERFECT PLAYLIST.

Whether you make it, whether you find a radio station on spotify, whatever you do, do it. I know that I hate having to faff around with finding songs and a station and skipping boring tunes and such so I like to know what playlist I’m listening to beforehand. I always tell myself I’m going to make my own playlist to jam to and get my heart rate pumpin’, but I never make time for it. But if that’s your thing, make one! Because it’ll make the workout that much more enjoyable!

2. MENTALLY PREPARE YOURSELF.

Something that helps me a lot is to prepare myself for the gym. Typically an hour or so beforehand I will start to think about the fact that I’m going, and when I feel the negativity and dread and overall laziness settling in, I immediately push those thoughts away and think about how it’s going to make me feel during and afterwards, the positive things it will bring on, how stronger mentally I will feel, and generally more motivated and happy I will be. Once I start to think about the positives and get myself mentally prepared to go, I’m generally fine.

3. PACK YOUR CLOTHES AND TAKE THEM WITH YOU.

I get stressed often. And I have a hectic schedule, in addition to working full time. So no matter how much I would love to be an early bird and hit the gym at 5am, right now that’s not what I’m about. So I take my clothes, gym shoes, headphones, water bottle, and yoga mat with me when I go to work so that way I have no excuse. I already have what I need, so I won’t have to go home and face my cozy sofa and talk myself out of it all. In addition: when I was a morning person and did my workouts earlier, I found it was easier to prepare my workout stuff the night before so it was the first thing I saw when I got up, I already had it ready to go, and I just wanted to get it over with. I was more likely to work out if it was ready to go for me. Just please remember: work with your schedule! Don’t pressure yourself into anything! Workouts should be enjoyable and spent doing something you love!

4. TAKE IT LITTLE BY LITTLE.

I am a very passionate person and while generally that’s a good thing, I tend to burn myself out easily. So I try to take new things little by little nowadays. I noticed one problem I have been having is looking at other people and thinking “this person works out six days a week and looks amazing so I need to workout six days a week for two hours” and “this person eats completely clean and has amazing abs so I need to do this too for the amazing bod”. And not only is this unhealthy, but it’s also unrealistic. Take your time. Find an interest and flow with it. Aim to do it once or twice a week if possible. Don’t burn yourself out. It’s okay to only do it once a week.

5. IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL.

This is something I have to always remind myself from day to day. The main focus of the workout should be feeling good, getting mentally stronger, releasing stress, and all that happy jazz. It’s gonna take some time to really remember to do so, but try not to focus on your “problem areas”. Workouts are so much better when you’re doing it for positive reasons only. I even started logging my workouts, how I felt before I went to gym, how I feel after. And it sounds tedious and a bit silly, but when I really don’t feel like working out it’s nice to look back at other times I felt the same way and physically just see how much better I felt after I did the work out. And I can guarantee, 9 out of 10 times, you will feel better after moving!